


Unmade

by agentx13 (rebelle_elle)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, sharon carter appreciation month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3617730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelle_elle/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of them was a perfect girlfriend. Months could pass without seeing one another as they worked on different coasts or in different hemispheres, but whenever they saw each other again, Sharon felt warmer inside. It was as if, without Natasha, she’d become so accustomed to cold that she’d ceased to be aware of it, and only Natasha could remind her what heat was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unmade

Neither of them was a perfect girlfriend. Months could pass without seeing one another as they worked on different coasts or in different hemispheres, but whenever they saw each other again, Sharon felt warmer inside. It was as if, without Natasha, she’d become so accustomed to cold that she’d ceased to be aware of it, and only Natasha could remind her what heat was.

*

Sharon saw how Natasha could burn like the sun itself, but in the early morning hours when both their bodies were heavy with sleep, Natasha was like the sunrise, warm and soft and gentle. After months together, they were comfortable enough waking up next to each other that Natasha even let Sharon kiss her awake, and Sharon’s early-morning kisses were as gentle as the dawn.

*

Natasha flirted with Sharon for months without Sharon realizing. Sharon was always more focused on her job, on the mission, on what to eat to have energy to keep doing her job, and Natasha was ready to accept that Sharon would never be interested in her that way until the day SHIELD fell.

When Sharon stumbled home, dirtied and bandaged and exhausted, Natasha greeted her with a kiss that was violent and clumsy and hard. When she pulled away, Sharon blinked at her stupidly, and Natasha replayed the kiss in her head. No, she decided. Sharon had definitely kissed her back.

“So you really were flirting with me all that time?” Sharon squeaked.

“Some spy you are,” Natasha complained.

“I thought that maybe you were, and then I thought that I was probably imagining it, and-” Sharon stopped talking, her eyes on Natasha’s lips, and despite their exhaustion, they staved off sleep as long as they could. The kisses were messy and tired and increasingly sloppy, and Natasha fell asleep with Sharon’s hot breath against her cheek and Sharon’s arms wrapped around her.

*

Sharon brought home a game of Twister once and claimed it was to help Natasha learn more about American culture.

Natasha saw through it instantly, and they end up in a pile on the floor, the mat sticking to their sweaty skin.

They never finished a single game of Twister, yet it was their favorite game to play.

*

Three months passed before Sharon was comfortable enough to slip her hand underneath Natasha’s waistband. Natasha stopped her, and Sharon took the hint and focused on just making out.

Two months later, Natasha slid her hand up Sharon’s skirt. After that, neither of them stopped the other again.

*

Sharon was a horrible cook. Natasha began learning recipes so they wouldn’t have to subsist on take-out or sandwiches all the time.

Sharon went away on a mission once and returned to her safe house to find a cooler full of tupperware and detailed instructions on how to heat up everything inside.

*

The first time they saw each other was when Natasha left Peggy’s room while Sharon was going in.

They glanced at each other with curiosity, but they both had other people to see and other things to do. They passed without saying a word.

*

Natasha couldn’t understand how Sharon could have such a happy childhood. Such things were foreign to her, understandable only in the abstract. During a week in the Maldives, Sharon enlightened her as best she could.

She talked for days about camping trips in the backyard and pranks played with the other Commando legacies. She talked about chopping down Christmas trees with her dad and accidentally burning cookies with her mom, drinking hot chocolate with Aunt Peggy on Christmas Eve. She talked about joining a gymnastics team in elementary school, going out for track in high school. She talked about GPAs and scholarships and math professors who told her math was harder for girls and the teacher who told her that maybe she’d enjoy more feminine pursuits. She talked about getting detention and spending hours after school cleaning gum from the bottoms of tables. She talked about pets and riding horses and eating too much popcorn at the movie theatre, back when people thought five dollars a ticket was ridiculously high.

When she asked Natasha was Natasha’s childhood was like, Natasha smiled and answered, “I was a ballerina, only I wasn’t.”

*

Natasha had a target on her back.

All spies had targets on their backs, she pointed out the rare times it came up. Sharon would reply that not all spies were Avengers who had action figures made of them.

Then there was the mission where Natasha didn’t come home.

Sharon didn’t think anything of it the first month. During the second month, she noticed the take-out boxes in her fridge had overtaken the fresh food Natasha usually made. In the third month, she started to worry. The fourth month passed, then the fifth.

And then Natasha was on the other side of the door. Her eyes were hollowed. Her arms were thinner. Stitches told Sharon that she wasn’t Natasha’s first stop.

She pulled Natasha inside. The night was spent making Natasha eat whatever take-out she had that hadn’t expired, then listening to Natasha’s quiet moans when she finally slept.

It would be several more months before Natasha let Sharon wake her with kisses, still more before Sharon would find the fresh scars on Natasha’s skin.

“Not the first time I’ve been unmade,” Natasha murmured.

Sharon’s lips lingered on each scar as if each one was sacred. When she was done, she carefully wrapped her arms around Natasha. You’re safe, she wanted to say. But she feared her voice would crack if she spoke aloud. 

Natasha didn’t seem to need it said out loud. When Sharon fell asleep at last, it was to the sound of Natasha’s steady breathing.

*

Their favorite place was a coffee shop near the park. Natasha quoted _Friends_ as Sharon bought them coffee and muffins, and then they sat together in the thick chairs in the corner and read the paper.

It was the closest they got to going on dates without having a mark or backup, and they went whenever they could.

*

The second time they met, Natasha cornered Sharon at Project Insight with two cups of coffee and a smile that would have been friendly if her gaze hadn’t been so intense.

“Agent Thirteen. I’m Natasha Romanoff.”

Sharon wondered that Natasha was introducing herself when everyone at SHIELD knew about her. The Black Widow was already something of a legend; trainees competed to beat Natasha’s scores. “Nice to meet you. I take it you want to talk about my other assignment?”

Natasha’s eyes brightened, her smile softened. She handed over one of the cups. “Upfront and perceptive. You’re my kind of girl.” She led the way into the hall. “I wanted to discuss logistics with you, as well as set up times we could talk about Captain Rogers and how he is - or isn’t - adjusting.”

Sharon took a sip from her coffee, and she didn’t for a second marvel how Natasha had known she liked her coffee black and, on bad days, with a touch of cream. This coffee had a bit of cream. She wasn’t sure if it was because Natasha was trying to butter her up for something later or because Natasha knew something about her workday Sharon didn’t. She grinned at the spy nonetheless. “I’d like that.”

*

When Sharon broke on an undercover mission, she didn’t go home. The CIA had cut her loose in Thailand. Maybe they’d doubted her loyalty, maybe they had simply lost her in some sort of bureaucratic mishap. It didn’t matter. Sharon spent so much time in a prison cell the size of a cardboard box that she came to think of it as home. Even after she escaped, Sharon had nightmares of hands reaching out from the walls of her cell and grabbing her, shaking her, stroking her, refusing to let go.

She had hardened before. She had adapted. She had become more of the agent SHIELD needed her to be.

But breaking wasn’t the same as becoming something more. She’d always felt like a person before. Now she felt like nothing more than a hollowed-out shell. The body moved, but the person inside had long since died.

She threw herself into her hurt and anger, targeting anyone who hurt someone who reminded her of herself. A husband abusing his wife, the gang that gouged out children’s eyes to make them more effective beggars, some teens who tortured a homeless man for fun. She avenged each and every one and kept going.

At first, she couldn’t go home because she didn’t have enough money for a phone call. Then, she didn’t have enough money for a plane ticket. At length, she had to admit to herself that it was because she didn’t want Natasha to see her like this. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this, but especially not Natasha, who knew her better than anyone. Natasha would see this new version of her as a stranger. Natasha would look at her as if she were a stranger, and that would be the blow that killed her more surely than any prison could.

*

When Natasha found her, Sharon was in a bar in Turkey.

Natasha took the seat across from her.

For a long, long time, the two only stared at each other. Natasha kept her thoughts to herself, only observing, but Sharon could see the pain in her eyes. Drunk as Sharon was, she couldn’t hide her worry, the fear that Natasha had tracked her down only to realize that Sharon wasn’t worth the trouble.

Instead, Natasha set a warm hand on top of Sharon’s. “I never wanted you to be unmade. Want help putting yourself back together?”

Sharon gazed at her, dumbfounded. And just like that, she was sobbing in the middle of the bar, Natasha’s arms tight around her, and though Natasha didn’t say it, Sharon finally understood that the arms were saying “I love you.” Natasha tracking her down was her saying, “I love you.” Natasha offering help, seeing how broken Sharon was and still offering help, was her way of saying, “I love you.”

*

Their favorite time together was sunrise when they could hear the city wake up. Their bodies would be heavy and languid with sleep, but Sharon would inevitably kick the sheets off as the air warmed, and Natasha would stretch her limbs like a ballerina preparing for a performance, heedless of whether Sharon was in the way or not.

On the mornings when there were no missions, they would lie side by side, letting the other wake up in their own time. Sometimes, when they were both awake, they would face each other in silence and see the sunlight in each other’s hair, and they would trace each other’s scars with light touches that said over and over, “I love you, I love you.”


End file.
